


The Art of War

by De_Nugis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-21 06:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/pseuds/De_Nugis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean gets heat exhaustion. This affects his strategic situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of War

**Author's Note:**

> For a picture prompt from cherie_morte.

Dean can assess a situation. It’s a useful skill, hey, it’s kept him alive, so it’s not an ability he resents, mostly. That doesn’t mean there aren’t times he could do with a few more illusions. Like now, for instance. A lesser tactician than Dean might think that he still had a chance. Dean knows better. For now his opponent has won. He’s won because he’s still fully clothed, upright and looming, whereas Dean is naked in a sloshing tub of tepid water with two fucking icepacks tucked in his armpits and one draped round his neck. Hard to take the high ground from here.

So Dean knows there’s nothing to gain from resisting. Better to bide his time and wait till the advantage swings his way. He takes the smoothie, even though it probably has mango in it and mango tastes like Pine Sol. 

It’s not bad.

“Could be worse,” says Dean. Unlike some, he’s not a sore loser. “Though I asked for a fucking milkshake.” 

Sam, ever ungracious, just grunts and turns the cold tap back on.

Looking back, because part of being a strategist is figuring out where you’ve gone wrong, Dean can trace how he reached this smoothie-drinking low point. He lost the moment he got a little light-headed – not _fainting_ , mind you, he didn’t fall down, just took a quick time-out to sit on the floor -- in that fucking sauna of a haunted warehouse. Sam had seized his chance to babble some bullshit about heat exhaustion, make unilateral decisions on the case, and take possession of the car. 

Dean has a system for when Sam drives. It’s a complex algorithm of Dean’s own invention and it’s infallible, like the pope. Or not like the pope, because there’s a lot the pope is wrong about. Dean could have told Sam that this was not one of the times he takes the wheel. Sam may have been a mathlete back when, but he’s shit at the algorithm. Only what with the queasiness and the headache and his vision trying to grey round the edges, explaining the algorithm for the umpteenth time was more than Dean was up for. He’d let it go till some other time. Like, the next century, when Sam might take an intelligent interest in how the algorithm works.

That was another mistake. If Dean had stood his ground on driving, Sam might not have got the idea that fucking _carrying_ him into the motel bathroom, stripping him, and dumping him in cool water like an actual wilting flower was something he could get away with. And he has. Dean contemplates his wrinkly fingers and toes through the cool greenish water. He has prune dick. Shrinkage. He glances covertly at Sam’s denimed crotch. Sam’s dick is probably doing just fine.

Yeah, it’s going to take time for Dean to regain his ascendancy here. For a start, he needs to get out of this tub.

 

He stands, silently daring Sam to say a word, and clutches the towel bar. He got dizzy for a second there, adjusting to the new strategic situation, no doubt. Sam grabs him and towels him down and makes him lie on the bed in a blast of frigid AC. Sam’s probably freezing him to death on purpose so he can have the car. Sam has days he tries for strategic thinking. He’s certainly intent on _something_ on the laptop.

“After an episode of heat exhaustion you’re sensitive to hot weather for a while,” he says, not looking up from the screen. “So we take it easy a day or two, then look for a hunt somewhere cool.” Laying down the fucking law. So that’s how Sam’s playing this.

They’re in Massachusetts. It’s not like they were ghostbusting in Death Valley. The TV is showing a weather map. Pretty much the whole US is red and orange. It hurts Dean’s eyes. Dean waves his hand at it. The best way of coping with Sam’s imperial _we_ is to deflect.

“You remember the evil Santa thing wasn’t, right?” he says. “Because if you’re looking for cool right now the North Pole’s our best bet.”

“So we’ll find a frost giant in an ice cream factory,” snaps Sam, “and rent a car built since the invention of climate control.”

It’s OK for Sam to take advantage if a situation plays into his hands. Dean doesn’t expect any less. Sam should know going after the car’s a mistake, though. 

“We finish up here, first,” Dean counters. “Unless you want a couple more bodies piling up while we sit poolside and sip a refreshing beverage.”

Sam’s mouth sets angrily, but he’s still holding on to reasonable. He knows it’s his position of strength. 

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll go back there tomorrow. No, tonight, when it’s a bit cooler. Shouldn’t take more than a couple hours. You’ll stay here.”

Dean still has an ugly, pulsing headache and he wishes Sam would stop escalating things. But he’s chosen his ground well, because this isn’t a thing Dean can back down on. 

“Not alone,” he says, “you’re not handling this on your own.” Dean can just see it, Sam’s head smashed in like a watermelon under one of those huge fucking crates at the warehouse, glaring industrial lights, smell of blood in the hot, soupy air. Dean waiting for him back here, in Sam’s fucking climate control. That would be a big win for Sam. And he’s sure as hell not going to get it. If Sam’s going to win Dean’s going to make sure Sam lives to see it. No gaining the day by dying. That’s cheating. At least, if Sam does it, it is. 

“I’m coming with.”

He stands up, because they might as well go now, nip Sam’s benching attempt in the bud. The headache spreads red and orange all over the map, then goes grey.

When he’s back to attending to things one of the ice packs is dripping over his eyes, there’s a thermometer in his mouth, and Sam’s talking to someone else.

“I’ll send along what we have. Yeah. Blood caught in the winch machinery, we think that’s what’s holding him. Thanks, Garth.” There’s a pause and an exasperated noise which is probably Sam being told he’s been Garthed. Then the bed dips as Sam sits down. He extracts the thermometer. The reading can’t be too dire, because he doesn’t start either laying into Dean or being nice to him.

“Garth’s got someone in Connecticut who can make it up by morning,” he says. “So you can give up on martyrdom by heat stroke.”

“ _You_ can give up on martyrdom by haunted winch,” says Dean. “You were the one out to prove something, taking off by yourself after something could actually kill you.” Dean may have been the one pointing out they should get the job done, but he hadn’t been going to send Sam on any fucking solo mission.

“You think heat stroke can’t kill someone just as efficiently as a spirit?” says Sam. “You think you’d be any less dead? Damn it, Dean. Will you just stop?”

Dean squints his eyes open. Sam looks pissed, yeah. They’re always competing for that particular ground. Might not suck to have some kind of truce on that. One of them has to give way first, of course. Sam had tricked Dean out of a good few yards of trenches on the Trials. Dean’s still got issues with that. 

But then Sam had stood down. Dean’s been working out ramifications ever since. He’s got a feeling that’s made it his turn for a good long while. He’s not sure he trusts Sam not to use that. Better not give him the chance. Sometimes it’s best to seize the initiative, even in giving way.

“Well, just because it was pagan gods that once doesn’t mean Evil Santa’s not a problem,” he concedes. “Just because you were wrong doesn’t mean you were totally wrong. We can check it out. Do the North Pole thing. Who knows, I might even let you drive the sled. Maybe a team of huskies will keep you from running off to get a dog.”

There’s a problem with battle, and that’s that you sometimes get lucky. And it’s not when you intend it. That’s the nature of luck. Sometimes you blow your opponent out of the water with a stray shot. Sometimes you do it when you were trying to surrender.

Dean’s not even sure, watching Sam’s face change, if it was the part about the dog or the part about running off that hit home. 

Thing is, Dean would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a bit of a thrill when this happens. He’s usually so damn outgunned. Sam’s an impregnable fortress, and he doesn’t even seem to fucking know it. Dean can’t tell what’s going on in there most of the time, let alone blow a breach in the walls. But that day in the church with Crowley Dean had seen a whole section slip and crumble to dust. He doesn’t ever want to see that again. He wants Sam behind the walls where he’s safe. And he sure as hell doesn’t want anything _he_ can say to be what can crack them. 

Knowing that weakens Dean’s position like nothing else ever has. But that doesn’t matter.

“Hey,” he says to the hair that’s fallen conveniently over Sam’s eyes. Too late. Dean already saw what was there. “Sammy. D’you think you could, you know, get me another of those smoothies?” 

Sam looks up warily. Dean stares back, working hard on guileless.

“Heat stroke is thirsty work,” he says. Persuasive. “So get off your lazy ass and wait on me. Bitch.”

Watching Sam’s expression change to hopeful is as good as a victory. 

“Yeah,” says Sam. “Yeah, sure.” He grabs the keys off the table, stops at the door. Dean can only see the back of his head. Even that is inches deep in hair. Sam and his fucking defenses.

“No mango,” Dean says to his tense shoulderblades, “That shit tastes like Pine Sol.”

The shoulders relax.

“We passed a Baskin Robbins,” Sam says. “I’ll get you a milkshake.” 

The door shuts behind him.

Dean’s guessing there’s such a thing as a mango milkshake, and he’s guessing Sam will find one. That’s OK. It’s a rearguard action and Dean’s anticipated it. He’s miles ahead of Sam on this one. He lies back against the pillow to wait, settling Sam’s goddamn drippy ice pack on his forehead.


End file.
